Mozilla Launches Firefox 3.0 RC1, and It's Great

Over the weekend, the Mozilla Foundation released Firefox 3.0 RC1, the first major step on the way to an improved Firefox browser. Personally, I highly recommend you give this a try; since it installs alongside your existing Firefox installation, you don't have to worry about overwriting key files, and the beta pulls your existing bookmarks into the new version.

I've used Firefox 3.0 since the beta 4 release, and it's really like using an entirely fresh, revamped browser. (If you don't believe me, read Michael Muchmore's review of Firefox 3.0 beta 4.) It just snaps -- pages render noticeably faster using the Gecko 1.9 renderer, which improves the experience tremendously. But the real bonus is that the notorious memory leaks seem to have been patched, meaning that the browser remains lightweight and functional.

I can't guarantee that Firefox RC1 will run flawlessly, as there's still quite a few known bugs. But I've also been using the beta as a "production" browser, and have rarely encountered an issue. And, if you do, Firefox will restore all of the tabs you were using when it crashed, a real safety net.